The Editor Component Configuration
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The Editor Component Configuration

This group contains all pages related to the editor component of Kate. Most of the settings here are defaults, they can be overridden by defining a filetype, by Document Variables or by changing them pr. document during an editing session.

Appearance

Word Wrap
Dynamic word wrap

If this option is checked, the text lines will be wrapped at the view border on the screen.

Dynamic word wrap indicators

Choose when the Dynamic word wrap indicators should be displayed.

Vertically align dynamically wrapped lines to indentation depth:

Enables the start of dynamically wrapped lines to be aligned vertically to the indentation level of the first line. This can help to make code and markup more readable.

Additionally, this allows you to set a maximum width of the screen, as a percentage, after which dynamically wrapped lines will no longer be vertically aligned. For example, at 50%, lines whose indentation levels are deeper than 50% of the width of the screen will not have vertical alignment applied to subsequent wrapped lines.

Code Folding
Show folding markers (if available)

If this option is checked, the current view will display marks for code folding, if code folding is available.

Borders
Show icon border

If this is checked, you will see an icon border on the left hand side. The icon border shows bookmark signs for instance.

Show line numbers

If this is checked, you will see line numbers on the left hand side.

Show scrollbar marks

If this option is checked the current view will show marks on the vertical scrollbar. These marks will for instance show bookmarks.

Sort Bookmarks Menu

By position

The bookmarks will be ordered by the line numbers they are placed at.

By creation

Each new bookmark will be added to the bottom, independently from where it is placed in the document.

Show identation lines

If this is checked, the editor wil display vertical lines to help identifying indent lines.

Fonts & Colors

This section of the dialog lets you configure all fonts and colors in any color scheme you have, as well creating new schemes or deleting existing ones. Each scheme has settings for colors, fonts and normal and highlight text styles.

Kate will preselect the currently active scheme for you, if you want to work on a different scheme start by selecting that from the Schema combobox.

Colors

Text Area Background
Normal text

This is the default background for the editor area, it will be the dominant color on the editor area.

Selected Text

This is the background for selected text. The default is the global selection color, as set in your TDE color preferences.

Current Line

Set the color for the current line. Setting this a bit different from the Normal text background helps to keep focus on the current line.

Bookmark

This combo lets you set overlay colors for various mark types. The color is mixed into the background color of a marked line, so that a line with more marks or a marked line that is current has a background that is a mix of more colors. The mark colors are also used if you enable display of scrollbar marks.

Other Elements
Left Border Background

This color is used for the marks, line numbers and folding marker borders in the left side of the editor view when they are displayed.

Line Numbers

This color is used to draw the line numbers on the left side of the view when displayed.

Bracket Highlight

This color is used to draw the background of matching brackets.

Word Wrap Markers

This color is used to draw a pattern to the left of dynamically wrapped lines when those are aligned vertically, as well as for the static word wrap marker.

Tab Markers

This color is used to draw white space indicators when enabled.

Fonts

Here you can choose the font for the schema. You can choose from any font available on your system, and set a default size. A sample text displays at the bottom of the dialog, so you can see the effect of your choices.

Normal Text Styles

The normal text styles are inherited by the highlight text styles, allowing the editor to present text in a very consistent way, for example comment text is using the same style in allmost all of the text formats that kate can highlight.

The name in the list of styles is using the style configured for the item, providing you with an immediate preview when configuring a style.

Each style lets you select common attributes as well as foreground and background colors. To unset a background color, rightclick to use the context menu.

Highlighting Text Styles

Here you can edit the text styles used by a specific highlight definition. The editor preselects the highlight used by your current document. To work on a different highlight, select one in the Highlight combobox above the style list.

The name in the list of styles is using the style configured for the item, providing you with an immediate preview when configuring a style.

Each style lets you select common attributes as well as foreground and background colors. To unset a background color, rightclick to use the context menu. In addition you can see if a style is equal to the default style used for the item, and set it to that if not.

You will notice that many highlights contain other highlights represented by groups in the style list. For example most highlights import the Alert highlight, and many source code formats imports the Doxygen highlight. Editing colors in those groups only affects the styles when used in the edited highlight format.

Cursor & Selection

Text Cursor Movement
Smart home

When selected, pressing the home key will cause the cursor to skip white space and go to the start of a line's text.

Wrap cursor

When on, moving the insertion cursor using the Left and Right keys will go on to previous/next line at beginning/end of the line, similar to most editors.

When off, the insertion cursor cannot be moved left of the line start, but it can be moved off the line end, which can be very handy for programmers. When this option is chosen, moving the cursor with the arrow keys off the end of a line (to the right) causes it to jump down to the beginning of the next line. Likewise when the cursor is moved past the beginning of a line (to the left) it jumps up to the end of the preceding line. When this option is not selected, moving the cursor right past the end of a line merely causes it to continue horizontally in the same line and trying to move it left past the beginning does nothing.

Page Up/Page Down moves cursor

This option changes the behavior of the cursor when the user presses the Page Up or Page Down key. If unselected the text cursor will maintain its relative position within the visible text in Kate as new text becomes visible as a result of the operation. So if the cursor is in the middle of the visible text when the operation occurs it will remain there (except when one reaches the beginning or end.) With this option selected, the first key press will cause the cursor to move to either the top or bottom of the visible text as a new page of text is displayed.

Autocenter cursor (lines):

Sets the number of lines to maintain visible above and below the cursor when possible.

Selection Mode
Normal

Selections will be overwritten by typed text and will be lost on cursor movement.

Persistent

Selections will stay even after cursor movement and typing.

Editing

Tabulators
Insert spaces instead of tabulators

When this is enabled the editor will insert a calculated number of spaces according to the position in the text and the tab-width setting when you press the TAB key.

Show tabulators

When this is enabled Kate will display a small dot as a visual representation of tabulator characters.

Note

This also causes dots to be drawn to indicate trailing white space. This will be fixed in a future version of Kate

Tab Width

If the Replace Tabs By Spaces option is selected this entry determines the number of spaces with which the editor will automatically replace tabs.

Static Word Wrap

Word wrap is a feature that causes the editor to automatically start a new line of text and move (wrap) the cursor to the beginning of that new line. Kate will automatically start a new line of text when the current line reaches the length specified by the Wrap Words At: option.

Enable static word wrap

Turns static word wrap on or off.

Show static word wrap markers (if applicable)

If this option is checked, a vertical line will be drawn at the word wrap column as defined in the Settings->Configure Editor... in the Editing tab. Please note that the word wrap marker is only drawn if you use a fixed pitch font.

Wrap words at

If the Word Wrap option is selected this entry determines the length (in characters) at which the editor will automatically start a new line.

Remove Trailing Spaces

Kate will automatically eliminate extra spaces at the ends of lines of text.

Auto Brackets

When the user types a left bracket ([, (, or {) Kate automatically enters the right bracket (}, ), or ]) to the right of the cursor.

Maximum undo steps:

Here the user may specify the number of steps Kate will retain in memory for purposes of undoing entries and actions. This means that the higher the number of steps set the more memory Kate will use for this. Setting this entry to 10 would mean that the user would be be able reverse the last ten operations, i.e. click the undo button 10 times and obtain results.

Smart search text from:

This determines where Kate will get the search text from (this will be automatically entered into the Find Text dialog):

  • Nowhere: Don't guess the search text.

  • Selection Only: Use the current text selection, if available.

  • Selection, then Current Word: Use the current selection if available, otherwise use the current word.

  • Current Word Only: Use the word that the cursor is currently resting on, if available.

  • Current Word, then Selection: Use the current word if available, otherwise use the current selection.

Note that, in all the above modes, if a search string has not been or cannot be determined, then the Find Text Dialog will fall back to the last search text.

Indentation

Automatic indentation
Indentation mode:

Select the automatic indentation mode you want to use as default. It is strongly recommended to use None or Normalhere, and use filetype configurations to set other indentation modes for text formats like C/C++ code or XML.

Insert leading Doxygen "*" when typing

Automatically insert a leading "*" while typing within a doxygen style comment. This setting is only enabled when applicable.

Indentation with Spaces
Use spaces instead of tabs to indent

This replaces tabs with the number of spaces set in Number of spaces: below.

Emacs style mixed mode

Use a mix of tabs and space characters for indentation.

Number of spaces:

Set the number of spaces you want to use for indentation when you check Use spaces instead of tabs to indent above.

Keep Indent Profile

When this is enabled, the editor will not unindent lines in a selection further when the line with the least indentation becomes unindented. If you sometimes unindent blocks of indented code, this may be helpful.

Keep Extra Spaces

Indentations of more than the selected number of spaces will not be shortened.

Keys to use
Tab key indents

This allows the tab key to be used to indent.

Backspace key indent

This allows the backspace key to be used to indent.

Tab Key Mode if Nothing Selected
Insert indent characters

This allows the Tab key insert indent characters.

Insert tab character

This allows the Tab key insert a tab.

Indent current line

This allows the Tab key indent the current line.

Open & Save

File Format
Encoding:

This sets the default character encoding for your files.

End of line:

Choose your prefered end of line mode for your active document. You have the choice between Unix-like, DOS/Windows® or Macintosh.

Automatic end of line detection

Check this if you want the editor to autodetect the end of line type. The first found end of line type will be used for the whole file.

Memory Usage
Maximum loaded blocks per file:

The editor will load given number of blocks (of around 2048 lines) of text into memory; if the filesize is bigger than this the other blocks are swapped to disk and loaded transparently as-needed.

This can cause little delays while navigating in the document; a larger block count increases the editing speed at the cost of memory.

For normal usage, just choose the highest possible block count: limit it only if you have problems with the memory usage.

Automatic Cleanups on Load/Save
Remove trailing spaces

The editor will automatically eliminate extra spaces at the ends of lines of text while loading/saving the file.

Folder Config File
Search depth for config file:

The editor will search the given number of folder levels upwards for Kate config file and load the settings line from it.

Backup on Save

Backing up on save will cause Kate to copy the disk file to <prefix><filename><suffix>' before saving changes. The suffix defaults to ~ and prefix is empty by default.

Local files

Check this if you want backups of local files when saving.

Remote files

Check this if you want backups of remote files when saving.

Prefix

Enter the prefix to prepend to the backup file names.

Suffix

Enter the suffix to add to the backup file names.

Highlighting

This group of options is used to customize the highlighting styles for each programming language type. Any changes you made in other areas of this dialog apply only to this type.

Highlight:

This is used to choose the language type to configure.

Informations

View the properties of the chosen language highlighting rules: author name and license.

Properties
File extensions:

This is the list of file extensions used to determine which files to highlight using the current syntax highlight mode.

MIME types:

Clicking the wizard button will display a dialog with a list of all available mime types to choose from.

The File Extensions entry will automatically be edited as well.

Priority:

Set the priority of the highlight rule.

Download...

Click this button to download new or updated syntax highlight descriptions from the Kate website.

Filetypes

This page allows you to override the default configuration for documents of specified mimetypes. When the editor loads a document, it will try if it matches the file masks or mimetypes for one of the defined filetypes, and if so apply the variables defined. If more filetypes match, the one with the highest priority will be used.

Filetype:

The filetype with the highest priority is the one displayed in the first drop down box. If more filetypes were found, they are also listed.

New

This is used to create a new filetype. After you click on this button, the fields below get empty and you can fill the properties you want for the new filetype.

Delete

To remove an existing filetype, select it from the drop down box and press the Delete button.

Properties of current filetype

The filetype with the highest priority is the one displayed in the first drop down box. If more filetypes were found, they are also listed.

Name:

The name of the filetype will be the text of the corresponding menu item. This name is displayed in the Tools->Filetypes

Section:

The section name is used to organize the file types in menus. This is also used in the Tools->Filetypes menu.

Variables:

This string allows you to configure Kate's settings for the files selected by this mimetype using Kate variables. You can set almost any configuration option, such as highlight, indent-mode, encoding, etc.

For a full list of known variables, see the manual.

File extensions:

The wildcards mask allows you to select files by filename. A typical mask uses an asterisk and the file extension, for example *.txt; *.text. The string is a semicolon-separated list of masks.

MIME types:

Displays a wizard that helps you easily select mimetypes.

Priority:

Sets a priority for this file type. If more than one file type selects the same file, the one with the highest priority will be used.

Shortcuts

You can change here the shortcut keys configuration. Select an action and click on Custom if you want a different shortcut for this action.

The search line alllows you to look for a specific action and see its associated shortcut.

Plugins

This tab lists all available plugins and you can check those you want to use. Once a plugin is checked, the Configure button is enabled and you can click it in order to configure the highlighted plugin.

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